


Technicolor

by sara_holmes



Series: Puzzle Pieces [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Add on to Counterpart, Arto POV, Arto's thoughts on his Avengers, Avengers Family, Bucky Bear - Freeform, Counterpart, Family Feels, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 20:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4276872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_holmes/pseuds/sara_holmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arto's favorite thing to learn is colors. Most of the Avengers are easy colors, but some are definitely more rainbow than the rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Technicolor

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [DreamingAngelWolf](http://dreamingangelwolf.tumblr.com/) who requested an attempt at something from Arto's POV. I think you probably wanted something a little more structured, but writing this much with only as much vocabulary as Arto would have has been a pain in the ass. I liked doing it, regardless :D 
> 
> This will not make one iota of sense unless you have read Counterpart. But if you're going to attempt it anyway - Arto Rogers is Steve's son who was rescued from another dimension. He's got many issues, including attachment issues, anger issues, and poor language skills which this fic kinda explores. 
> 
> (and as always, thank you to [everyworldneedslove](http://everyworldneedslove.tumblr.com/) for cheerleading and helping with tags, and also so I can say 'HA I can write something that's not 400,000 words long, told you so' <3.)

 

His favorite thing to learn is colors.

Before, Arto knew exactly what he meant, exactly how he was feeling but he never had a way to put it into words. Words were hard. Too hard. Sampson was something like the tiles on the floor, the locked door, a strange feeling in his tummy – his stomach, he’s not a baby, Sampson says he’s not a baby, he tells him in _that_ voice that he’s _not a baby_ \- that wants to hide under the bed. He couldn’t explain it any better than that.

Eleanor was a feeling where his heart is. A sad one. One like crunched up pieces of paper. He thinks that’s the word for it. Eleanor tried to explain sad to him once, and he thinks he gets it, but he’s not going to tell her that he doesn’t because he’s smart and good and he should know everything.

And in the new place, there are so many things going on that he doesn’t have the words for, and it’s hard, too hard and he hates it and he has to do it and he just wants-

And Steve is green.

Green is strongest arms that hold him tight. The hair that is the same as his own. The gentle hands that stroke over his head when he’s tired. The short hair on the back of his head that he lets Arto stroke when he wants to sleep. Ice cream and sunshine and new things. Playing with him and taking him outside. How, how – _tall_ , Tony taught him that one – how tall he is. How his smile is not always the same. It sometimes goes up and sometimes goes sideways and sometimes it looks like Arto feels, like it wants to hide under the bed or in the wall.

(He likes it in the wall. Because when it’s hard and he screams, it screams right back at him.)

And Steve is sometimes sad, and Arto doesn’t like it. Because Steve is his, and he’s green and that’s a good thing right?

Nowadays he smiles most of the time. And when Arto says green to him he always, always says it back and it’s good.

Natasha’s red and she’s gorgeous and he likes her smile. She’s easy. She’s not – different? Moving? Complicated? She looks after people and beats up bad guys and she calls him Solnishka. She’s easy.

Clint is red too. He's easy. And he calls Arto Short Round not Solnishka, but Clint says that Natasha’s word is Russian (a whole new language and _see_ , it is okay to talk when no-one understands you) so that must mean Solnishka means Short Round in their language. (Steve says American. Bruce says English. Grown ups have too many words for the same thing.) As well as red, Clint is blue and that means he's Arto’s big brother. Thinking back, Eleanor was blue to begin with. But then she wasn’t. He trusts Clint to stay blue though. Though he’s also sometimes green like Steve, and even if Tony insists that red and blue don’t make green, Arto knows better.   

(Tony says that red and blue make purple and he guesses that makes sense because Clint wears purple all the time, but he's still figuring out how red and blue can sometimes make two different colors.)

Tony is blue as well and Arto trusts him as much as Steve and Clint. Maybe more. And after a while he thinks that maybe Tony is actually green too. Safe arms that hold him tight. Gentle kisses on his forehead. Not being cross when Arto wants to hide under the bed, when he's so - hot? Strange? Scrunched up in his chest? - _angry_ that he doesn't know what to do.

And he knows that green is for biologicky stuff but Tony definitely feels green. Steve seems to be happy with Tony being green. Maybe Art'll ask him if he can be green too one day. He's pretty sure Tony won't mind.

The hardest color of them all is Bucky. He's - scary? Sad? - and he's always changing. He's the opposite of red. He's got a metal arm and it hurts and pinches and bites, and Arto doesn't like it or him.

But then sometimes he's so nice to Clint and Arto that he is a little bit red. He even smiles like he's red some days, and he laughs a lot when he's with Clint and Steve. And Arto has seen him hugging Steve when Steve has been crying (and he wasn't spying, he was just looking into the gym and Tony smiles and says it's okay, but picks him up and carries him away anyway). So to Steve, Bucky is probably a lot blue.

And Bucky looks at Clint like Tony looks at Steve and Arto says _I told you so_ and Bucky says to shut his trap, but he smiles when he says it. He even doesn’t mind when Arto colors over the yellow line and makes it pink. Bucky is definitely not red and easy.

He tries to explain it to Clint. He says Bucky is all the colors, like a rainbow. Clint laughs so much he cries, and yeah Clint is red and blue makes green but he's also _weird_.

When he's stopped laughing, Clint explains to Arto that Bucky was once hurt by some people. (The same people, and even if Bucky was big when they hurt him Arto knows what that hurt feels like, a little bit.) And Clint says that that's what makes Bucky complicated sometimes. Complicated. Multicolored. The same thing.

And when Arto learns this, he feels bad for trying to bite Bucky and takes him Bucky Bear to say sorry.

Bucky looks a bit - open eyes, breathing in quick, jumping back - shocked to be given Bucky Bear, but then he just leans over and grabs Arto, pulling him up onto the bed and dropping him between him and Clint. He make a noise that's not a word and rolls over so he's facing Arto and Clint, tucking Bucky bear under his chin. He goes back to sleep and so does Arto.

So Bucky _is_  sorta red and blue like Bucky Bear. But he's black as well, like the mask on Bucky Bear, the bits that hurt and are sometimes scary and sad. But Arto kind of thinks Bucky wouldn't ever hurt him, even when he's more black than red and blue.

(Besides. Clint knows how to cheer him up so that's okay.)

Bruce and Thor don't have colors yet. Neither does Thor’s girlfriend. Bruce had looked a bit - oh no, he _knows_ this one - when Arto had reassured him he'd get a color. Thor had just smiled and said he didn't mind waiting.

Thor's pretty cold. Cool. Stupid fucking words.

(Confused! He did know that word, he knew he did. He tells Steve that he told him so and Steve just looks - well. He looks confused. But then he just smiles and pulls Arto in and blows a raspberry on his tummy and Arto laughs and has never felt so green in ever.)

 


End file.
